Michael Russo's NHL short takes

In what would have been a colossal mistake by a franchise trying to build its barren prospect cupboard, the Calgary Flames should consider themselves lucky the Colorado Avalanche matched their offer sheet to restricted free agent Ryan O'Reilly.

If the Avs hadn't, the Flames would have had to give up a first- and third-round pick as compensation and would have wound up losing the player -- because O'Reilly would not have been able to play for Calgary without going on waivers since he played two games in Europe while holding out.

Next time Colorado's in Calgary, General Manager Jay Feaster and staff should probably pick up Avs GM Greg Sherman and staff's dinner bill.

Some big rips

Carolina's Alex Semin played his former team, the Caps, last week, and former teammate Troy Brouwer scorched him, saying, "Some nights you didn't even know if he was going to come to the rink. It's tough to play alongside guys like those because you don't know what you're going to get out of them."

That was still nothing compared to what Mike Milbury did to Alex Ovechkin. The NBC Sports Network analyst was absolutely unremitting by showing umpteen examples of Ovechkin's lazy play against Philadelphia.

"I don't listen to nobody right now, so they can talk whatever they want," Ovechkin said.

Lydia Ko's return home for the New Zealand Women's Open will give the former world No. 1 a chance to sustain her recent improvement in form and perhaps collect her first LPGA title in more than a year.